Tag Archives: Fat Babies

Joy-spreaders and happiness-increasers, they are Carl Sonny Leyland, piano / vocal; Clint Baker, string bass; Jeff Hamilton, drums. Here are three more performances from the trio’s recent excursion into Colorado for the Evergreen Jazz Festival. Here are the first three by this three: joy cubed.

This outburst of pleasure — one night before the Festival began — is from the delightful barn concert in Longmont organized by the gracious Dorothy Bradford Vernon, on July 28.

This post is a little audio-visual bouquet, not only to the swing superheroes, but especially to Dorothy, whose generous energies made everyone happy.

An early Thirties love song (who knows what a Morris chair is, now?) with the verse, at a groovy tempo:

Who’s that young man in the grip of Music? Jonathan Doyle, for certain.

I first encountered Jonathan Doyle (tenor saxophone, clarinet, compositions, arrangements) through my friend, master percussionist Hal Smith — more about that later — which is a stellar recommendation. I then encountered Jon as the lead horn in a San Diego Jazz Fest session with Ray Skjelbred (another gold star) and most recently with the Fat Babies at the Evergreen Jazz Festival. Somewhere in this delightful process of admiration, I heard and loved Jonathan’s CD, THE FED HOP, and we actually had a short friendly conversation at Evergreen. His official biography can be found here.

Jonathan is not one of those highly-schooled fellows who “understands” swing from a safe distance. Watch him on video for even eight bars, and you see that he is utterly immersed in it, his horn and his body in the grip of the most beautiful energies. He also surrounds himself with like-minded souls who obviously live for this kind of lyrical groovy experience. AND his compositions are quite wonderful: often subversively built on almost-familiar chord changes with titles that almost give the joke away. For instance, I think I’VE NEVER BEEN TO NEW YORK is a slow rock over the harmonies of ROSE OF WASHINGTON SQUARE, the results being satisfying and a well-executed in-joke. This band harks back to the Keynote sessions, to Basie small groups (with Basie himself smiling at the sounds but not at the keyboard), Benny Carter lines, and more . . . but they’re not in town to copy, but to evoke. And they do it splendidly.

The swing heroes for this particular session, captured slightly more than a year ago at the Sahara Lounge in Austin, Texas, are Jonathan, tenor sax; David Jellema, cornet; Mark Gonzales, trombone; Brooks Prumo, rhythm guitar; Joshua Hoag, string bass; Jason Baczynski, drums. The very expert videos are by Gary Feist of yellowdogvideo.com.

Some very good omens. First, a close cousin of the band shown above has recorded a new CD, TOO HOT FOR SOCKS, which I will be writing about — enthusiastically, having heard some of it through digital magic. You can hear it and Jon’s other recordings at his websiteand here. He’s also on Facebook here. And — just to pile tantalizing bits of data one upon another –hereis his YouTube channel, full of delights. (So the young man may play like it’s 1946 but he certainly knows how to navigate this century with grace.)

Hal Smith (mentioned admiringly above) has a new band, SWING CENTRAL, which features Jon as the sole horn, exploring the best floating small-band swing with a focus on Lester Young, Charlie Christian, and Pee Wee Russell. The other participants have been pianist Dan Walton, guitarist Jamey Cummins, and either Joshua Hoag or Steve Pikal on string bass. They’ve played at the Capital City Jazz Fest in Madison, Wisconsin in April, and they just had a gig at Central Market in Austin, Texas. Rumor has it that a few festival appearances are being discussed, as is a CD recording session. And — no rumor — I will have some videos from Austin to share with you in the near future. A band to look out for!

They use their powers for good: their seismic vibrations help keep the planet on its proper axis. Not Marvel Comics, but Carl Sonny Leyland, piano / vocal; Clint Baker, string bass; Jeff Hamilton, drums.

The first — one night before the Festival began — is from the delightful barn concert in Longmont organized by the gracious Dorothy Bradford Vernon, on July 28. (I am shy of exploring new places in the dark in a rental car, so my willingness to drive an hour — even with a GPS — in uncharted Colorado should give an idea of my delight in Carl, Clint, and Jeff.)

An energized MY GAL SAL:

The second two come from the Festival itself, the first being Carl’s own song-form COUSCOUS BOOGIE, performed on the 29th:

and a solo excursion (July 30), which I have titled LET IT ALL HANG OUT:

The Evergreen Jazz Festival was superb and consistently gratifying, with splendid performances by the Kris Tokarski Trio with Tim Laughlin and Hal Smith, the Fat Babies, and many other bands. I will have much more uplifting evidence to share with you.

Carl, Clint, and Jeff showed off — in the most natural joyous way — immense musical and sonic versatility. They delighted us on the spot, and these videos are full of life.

That’s the Evergreen Jazz Festival, which I was fortunate to attend in 2014, following James Dapogny’s Chicago Jazz Band around — in rain, in sunshine, to that very fine Vietnamese restaurant Saigon Landing.

This July 29-31, the Evergreen Jazz Festival boasts a number of local favorites: Hot Tomatoes Dance Orchestra, After Midnight, the Queen City Jazz Band with Wende Harston, Joe Smith and the Spicy Pickles, Gypsy Swing Revue, The Poudre River Irregulars, Felonius Smith Trio.

But the out-of-towners are quite special also. The Fat Babies, from Chicago; Nicki Parrott and B.A.D. Rhythm, from all over, Carl Sonny Leyland Trio (with Clint Baker and Jeff Hamilton) from California, and the Kris Tokarski Trio (with Tim Laughlin and Hal Smith) from New Orleans by way of Searcy, Arkansas.

Here‘s the complete schedule, so you can start planning. (I use a yellow highlighter, myself.) I’m also going to be studying the map, since I got heroically lost in 2014.

Here‘s ticket information (prices are very inexpensive). And for those who are unconvinced by photographs of rainbows, I offer a few postings here and herefrom 2014 so that you can get a good sense of the delicious hot jazz inspired by Evergreen. It’s an inspiring place.

I keep coming back to the videos I’ve shot at several yearly incarnations of the San Diego Jazz Fest — and finding treasures and marvels I’d overlooked. (I also keep coming back to the actual Fest, but that should startle no one.)

Jonathan Doyle

Here are some highlights from a long quartet set performed by Ray Skjelbred, piano; Jonathan Doyle, the swing star from Austin, Texas; Beau Sample, string bass and leader of the Fat Babies; Hal Smith, who’s played with and swung everyone who deserves it.

Beau Sample

My titles are an expression of whimsical shorthand, but there’s nothing left out in these performances. First, a swing trio (Chicago pays San Diego a visit) then quartet improvisations that are delightful inducements to the dance, even if you are sitting in a chair.

Hal Smith

MY HONEY’S LOVIN’ ARMS (scored for trio):

A song I associate with Bessie Smith, I’M WILD ABOUT THAT THING (decide for yourself what THAT THING is, but no need to write in, because no prizes will be awarded for the best answer). I’m wild about this performance, I feel compelled to say:

A postscript. The jazz-scholar part of my being says that I could have written a thousand words on Influences and Echoes, with a long list of names, including Jess Stacy, Joe Sullivan, Earl Hines, Frank Melrose, Rod Cless, Frank Teschemacher, Lester Young, Eddie Miller, Wellman Braud, George Wettling, Jo Jones, Sidney Catlett, Milt Hinton . . . but I will let you do the research for yourself — in whatever way offers the most satisfying results. I’d rather revel in the actual sounds made by Smith, Sample, Doyle, and Skjelbred on a late November day in 2014.

I had a wonderful time at the San Diego Jazz Fest, but that is nothing new. Paul Daspit, like the jazz patriarch of a very widespread family, treats us to one savory dish after another. I resigned myself to hard choices but enjoyed all that I saw and heard, beginning with the Yerba Buena Stompers and their new sensation, Miss Ida Blue; the Fat Babies; Ray Skjelbred; Chris Dawson; Jonathan Doyle; Musician of the Year “Gentleman Jim” Buchmann; High Sierra; the New Orleans All Stars of Tim Laughlin and Connie Jones; Hal Smith, Beau Sample; Marc Caparone; Katie Cavera, and other notables.

Here’s a James P. Johnson classic — which always sounds like a hymn to traditional monogamous devotion to me — OLD-FASHIONED LOVE:

These players know all one can know about sweet melodic improvisation over a gently infallible rhythm section: I hear Thirties Teddy Wilson small groups, the Vanguard sessions, a dream meeting of Eddie Condon, Bobby Hackett, and Count Basie. But it’s not a dream: it happened in front of our eyes and ears. That’s something to be truly thankful for!

I’m grateful to the musicians, to Paul, Myrna Beach Goodwin, Jim McNaughton, Gretchen Haugen, the volunteers, and the gracious people at the Town and Country — for helping us all have such an uplifting experience.

Although the physicists explain gravely that time — make that Time — is not a straight line but a field in which we may meander, it often feels as if we are characters in a Saul Steinberg cartoon, squinting into the looming Future while the Past stretches behind us, intriguing but closed off. We anxiously stand on a sliver of Now the thickness and length of a new pencil, hoping for the best.

Jazz, or at least the kind that occupies my internal jukebox, is always balancing (not always adeptly) Then and Now. For some, Then is marked in terms of dates: this afternoon in November 1940, or this one in July 1922. The most absorbed of us can even add artifacts and sound effects: uncontrollable coughing, a trout sandwich, the sound of dancers’ feet in a ballroom.

But for me, Then is a series of manifestations, imagined as well as real, that have no particular date and time.

Bix and Don Murray watching a baseball game. The Chicago flat where Louis and friends drank Mrs. Circe’s gin and told stories. Mezz Mezzrow on the subway. Strayhorn auditioning in Ellington’s dressing room. Mystics Boyce Brown, Tut Soper, and Don Carter, each imagining the universe in his own way. Eddie Condon picking up the tenor guitar. Hot Lips Page shaking a Texan’s hand. Art Hodes and Wingy Manone politely deciding who gets to wear the bear coat tonight. Francene and Frank Melrose having Dave Tough and friends over for a scant but happy meal of rice and peppers. E.A. Fearn making a suggestion. Billy Banks arriving late for the record date. Bird washing dishes while hearing Art Tatum. Joe Oliver having a snack in a Chinese restaurant.

Any jazz fan who has read enough biography can invent her own mythography of the landmarks of Then.

Now, although it recedes as I write this, is a little easier to fix in time and space, in the way one pushes a colored push-pin through a map.

See you in Cleveland, Ohio, between September 18 and 21, 2014, for more of the same delicious time-superimpositions, courtesy of the Allegheny Jazz Party, where such things happen as a matter of course.